ArenaNet has just announced that Guild Wars 2 will launch later this year and, in addition, will have its open beta begin shortly.

The closed beta is now ending and a select few of the press will get in next month with the doors opening to more players in March and April. That would mean that we could expect a late spring or early summer for the launch, although no specifics were given on the exact launch date. This announcement coincides with Chinese year of the dragon and as we all know, Guild Wars 2 is going to be dragon-tastic.

We recently finished our first closed beta test, and we’re now ready to hold progressively larger events. In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year.

With this latest announcement you can be sure that Ten Ton Hammer will have you covered, both here on our main network and over at Necrobator, your main stop for Necromancer news in GW2. You can read the official announcement over at the official blog.

Necrobator also has more information on the Year of the Dragon.